11/5/13

It exists, that is the only thing we can be sure of. This place, magical, mysterious, cryptic, surrounds itself with shadow, cloaks itself in the unknown. It cannot be measured, quantified or studied. This place follows no rules of physics, natural laws do not exist there. It is beyond time, it lays outside of space. But it is there, that we know and the only way to gain access to this place is to utter this phrase "Kids, get in the car".

Somewhere between the garage door and the actual car, that is the portal to this nirvana of lost time. I have been there many, many times. However, I cannot describe to you what is in this place, what creatures may inhabit it, what fauna may cultivate there. I do not know that I am there when I pass through the portal. I just, kind of, come out the other side, unaware that I have taken a voyage beyond my own reality.

I do not know if it is malevolent. I do not know if its intentions with me or my family are pure. Have I been probed in an anal style? I do not know for I do not remember anything when I return from there. And it is odd, because for the longest time I had no idea that I had visited this place.

My discovery came quite by accident. It was time to leave on an outing. Probably something awesome because that is how we roll. You lay people may leave to do chores, perhaps to catch a movie. When I leave my house, it is to conquer, adventure, to slay boredom with a mighty season pass to the zoo. No, when I adventure with my kids, we may end up at the store, or some giant steam shovel that stretches to the sky. Well, unless Hossmom is with us. Then we have to do practical things like underwear shopping or getting haircuts. Then it's pretty boring.

I told my kids, and unknown to me, uttered the magic phrase "Kids, get in the car." The time was 9:28 am. A bit of a late start for us but that's ok, we had bacon AND sausage for breakfast. Even our mealtimes are awesome.

I pack Bacon Hoss in his car seat, I help Bubba Hoss with his shoes, I dodge Chinese throwing stars chucked by Little Hoss at my head. We go through the garage door, I think we did anyway. We go to the family Van of Vengeance and Destruction. I put everyone in, we buckle up, we turn on the car. I look at my clock.

The clock reads 9:43.

This cannot be right? This bothers me. I have lost 15 minutes and I do not know how. Surely it does not take my little pack of minions 15 minutes to get in the god damn car. Seriously, who takes 15 minutes to get into the car which is only a grand total of 10 steps away? I dismiss this, perhaps I read the clock wrong. We go slay some monsters, solve some mysteries, eat some scooby snacks.

We head out again on the weekend. Soccer games. 8:32AM. I say "Kids, get in the car." We get in the car. The clock reads 8:47am. This is when I knew that this wasn't coincidence. This is when I began to suspect that there is some parallel dimension that exists between my car and my garage door.

For the next several weeks, I watched the clocks when we left. Almost always 15 minutes had disappeared from each morning outing. Sure, sometimes it was 12 minutes, sometimes it was a bit longer at 19 minutes.

I could not account for the lost time. I thought perhaps my clocks were wrong so I made sure to set them to the same exact time. The next day we lost 14 minutes. I thought that perhaps I was having blackouts and running through the streets for 15 minutes every morning covered in peanut butter. I checked the peanut butter--jar still full.

I ran experiments. I told my wife to get in the car to go to the store. We lost no time, it took us less than 30 seconds to get in the car. The clocks showed no lost time. I went to see a movie by myself and uttered the phrase "Hoss, get in the car."

5 seconds elapsed, not 15 minutes.

So the next day I said "Kids, get in the car." Boom, 15 minutes missing.

There was only one rational explanation: a sinister dimension, living next to my own, that survives by sucking away 15 minutes of my life force every time I make the kids get in the car.

Now, I know that the unbelievers, the ones without any faith or humanity, would come up with something more simple than my explanation. They would point out that my older son never seems to ever put his shoes in his shoe basket and must look for them for an hour. At which point he will give up and say he can't find them. At which time I would point to the fact that he is literally standing on them and how in Gods holy fuck can he not notice that when I told him to get his shoes on 15 minutes ago.

They may also say that Little Hoss must constantly ask questions about imaginary things and demand answers to. Such as how long can dragon warts live, what is a dragon wart, where do I get dragon warts, a kid at school told me about dragon warts, he's a dragon wart, can I have a snack? This barrage of questions can go on for 15 minutes and I'll be honest, I'm not sure how to answer them so I make shit up. Dragon Warts can live for eleventeen years, they are warts that live on the butts of dragons but are conscious of their existence, you get dragon warts from dragon toads, yes the kid at school is a dragon wart and no, you cannot have a snack you just had breakfast of bacon and sausage. I find life is way more fun this way.

And surely, Bacon Hoss may contribute. He may, say every fucking morning, get his diaper changed right before we are going to leave. I may put a new one on him, get him dressed and set him on the ground. I may then on occasion look at him, say every morning, and watch his face go red, his breathing get short and raspy while spittle comes out his mouth as he makes a series of short grunting noises that lets me know he has just taken a massive dump right before we were fixing to leave and right after I changed his diaper.

Those are all very possible explanations as to why I lose 15 minutes telling the kids to get in the car. But there is one hole in that logic: it is not awesome.

It is boring, it is mundane. It is the life of normals, of muggles who go underwear shopping and go 10 miles out of their way because they have a $1 off coupon at the underwear store. It is ordinary without any plot, subplot, villain, hero or even so much as a preamble. It is the story of "Hey, the kids are dicking around this morning, we are running late. Let's get some Starbucks on the way, kisses, smooch."

That is not our life. Our life is filled with wonder, with adventures, of glories that are wrestled from the mouth of the mundane. Ours is filled with kids who talk about dragon warts and the case of strange and interesting invisible shoes. The Hossman life is filled with a super baby that must expel evil prior to combating the new challenges of the day.

Our life is filled with some mystical dimension that lays somewhere between the garage door an my car, some strange and mysterious place that saps me of 15 minutes of life every time I tell the kids to get into the car and then magically erases the horrors of it from my mind. That is our life.

Our life is filled with monsters that must be slain, quests that must be taken. Our life is about over coming impossible challenges, to see an obstacle, conquering it, destroying the bad guy while eating bacon AND sausage for breakfast.

That is our life because that life, the one that we choose to live in, is way more interesting and fun.

The Inner Hoss

Let me explain it this way: I have a college degree and had a job. I quit it on purpose to teach my three minions how to be minions. After 8 years the kids have only broken 1/2 of what we've seen but the other half is on the list.